Architecture from the Outside: Essays on Virtual and Real Space (Writing Architecture) [Paperback]

Elizabeth Grosz (Author), Cynthia Davidson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0262571498 | ISBN-13: 978-0262571494 | Publication Date: June 1, 2001

To be outside allows one a fresh perspective on the inside. In these essays, philosopher Elizabeth Grosz explores the ways in which two disciplines that are fundamentally outside each another--architecture and philosophy--can meet in a third space to interact free of their internal constraints. "Outside" also refers to those whose voices are not usually heard in architectural discourse but who inhabit its space--the destitute, the homeless, the sick, and the dying, as well as women and minorities.Grosz asks how we can understand space differently in order to structure and inhabit our living arrangements accordingly. Two themes run throughout the book: temporal flow and sexual specificity. Grosz argues that time, change, and emergence, traditionally viewed as outside the concerns of space, must become more integral to the processes of design and construction. She also argues against architecture's historical indifference to sexual specificity, asking what the existence of (at least) two sexes has to do with how we understand and experience space. Drawing on the work of such philosophers as Henri Bergson, Roger Caillois, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Luce Irigaray, and Jacques Lacan, Grosz raises abstract but nonformalistic questions about space, inhabitation, and building. All of the essays propose philosophical experiments to render space and building more mobile and dynamic.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"William Mitchell has a rare understanding of the ways in which emerging network culture is changing the social, political, and economic fabric as well as transforming the architecture of cities and the subjects who inhabit them. Savvy, insightful and provocative, Me++ is required reading for anyone baffled by the present and concerned about the future."--Mark C. Taylor, Columbia University and Williams College

"With characteristic insight and rigor, Elizabeth Grosz provides a helpful analysis of the relation between philosophy and architecture during the past decade. More important, by rethinking virtuality in relation to the body and materiality, and vice versa, she effectively moves beyond oppositional modes of analysis, which have created a critical impasse. For Grosz, the virtual opens a future in which 'the logic of invention' can operate. To follow her into this emerging space is to discover that this 'outsider' is an 'insider' with much to teach."--Mark C. Taylor, Columbia University and Williams College

"It is a credit to the field of architectural theory that it is so open to its outside--to the creative contributions of other disciplines and approaches. In this illuminating series of essays, Elizabeth Grosz brings to architecture a Deleuzian philosophical perspective that complements her longstanding engagements with both the concept of space and the experience of bodies. The result casts a new light on both architecture and philosophy."--Michael Hardt, Literature Program, Duke University

"Architecture's best-kept secret is that it is not only knowledge of form, but also a form of knowledge.  Elizabeth Grosz's Architecture from the Outside explores that secret, revealing key contemporary concepts and ideas and opening new routes for spatial research and invention."--Bernard Tschumi, Dean, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, Columbia University

"Architecture's boundaries are extremely porous, and the flow of ideas between its inside and outside is surprisingly unrestricted.  Elizabeth Grosz brilliantly exploits this porosity to make a space for reflections and insights. Architecture from the Outside is required reading for any architect who wants his or her work to engage the wide array of challenges confronting us today."--Ralph Lerner, School of Architecture, Princeton University

"Dj Spooky and COMA, together sampling provocative thoughts and creative graphic design, have made *Rhythm Science* a fascinating addition to today's book culture."--Bernard Tschumi, Dean, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, Columbia University

About the Author

Elizabeth Grosz is the Julian Park Chair in Humanities at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Product Details

• Paperback: 241 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (June 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262571498
• ISBN-13: 978-0262571494
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #246,860 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Let Down, April 15, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Architecture from the Outside: Essays on Virtual and Real Space (Writing Architecture) (Paperback)

Initially I was impressed with this book, it seemed to be well written and to raise some interesting questions concerning architectural ideas of the present and future. As the book progresses the author's rhetoric gets a bit thin, causually citing references that are never elaborated upon leaving many of her arguements baseless. If you suffer from the ability to develop your own questions concerning the future of architectural thought/theory, whether you are an architect or from the 'outside', buy this book. Otherwise find an author that can actual communicate an idea beyond an initial thought.

6 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars To Be Read Time Before Time, May 1, 2006

By 

~*Feral aRchiTect kiTten*~ - See all my reviews

This review is from: Architecture from the Outside: Essays on Virtual and Real Space (Writing Architecture) (Paperback)

The most enlightening chapter is "The Future of Space: Toward an Architecture of Invention". For that essay alone, buy or read this book. Ms Grosz problematizes philosophies with virtualities, logics, or spaces they have long overlooked. Moving away from a tired tradition of coherentism and rigor (phallocentric logocentrism), Aristotelian logic and argumentation, Ms. Grosz takes us on a journey through space and time, before or after space and time, and in between time and space or space and time (the interval). It constitutes a journey, as such, that won't soon be forgotten. Ms. Grosz offers insights such as the following:

"Space itself, the very stuff of architectural reflection and production, requires and entails a mode of time, timeliness, or duration. Indeed, space must always involve at least two times, or perhaps two kinds of time. The first is the time of the emergence of space as such, a time before time and space, a temporalization/spatialization that precedes and renders the organization or emergence of space as such and time as such and thus emerges before a scientific understanding of a space-time continuum." (p. 110)

Time, as such, is represented by the virtual (virtuality), "a concept that requires not only a time before time but also a time after time" (p. 111).

Ms. Grosz's essays are informed by her expansive and extensive knowledge and erudition of Aristotelian logic, contact physics, maths, and postmodern philosophy.

Her insights into the mysteries of space and time, the suchness of the now, the virtuality of the actuality or the potentiality, and the "hesitation" of durationality will have your head spinning as it's nodding in agreement.

1 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing and Cutting Edge, January 13, 2005

By 

Claudia C. Copeland (NY, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Architecture from the Outside: Essays on Virtual and Real Space (Writing Architecture) (Paperback)

Professor Grosz as done it again. In her latest work she as out done herself. Enjoy the read